


and now before the door

by radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Homecoming, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, temporary baby acquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order: they fight Hydra, steal a baby, and come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and now before the door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [circulation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/circulation/gifts).



> For Alex, who wanted Steve awkwardly holding a baby. I think we can all agree the world needs more of that.

It takes them two months to catch up with Bucky, and Steve thinks the only reason it happens is because Bucky lets them.

Over coffee in a cafe in Berlin, Bucky says, “I can’t go back to New York.”

Steve says, “Okay.” He wraps his hand around his still-warm cup, looks at Bucky. Says, “I could stay.”

“Hang on, what?” Sam says.

Bucky looks at him with a tired smile. “You gonna change my mind?”

“I wanna try,” Steve says, “if you’ll let me.”

Bucky’s silent for a moment. Steve watches the flex of his hand on the table. He’s wearing a glove but Steve can picture clearly the shine of the metal underneath.

“I’ve got a job tomorrow,” Bucky finally says. “You could stick around.” He glances at Sam, the half-filled duffel at his feet, and Steve carrying even less. His smile, when it comes back, is a little rueful. “You got a place to stay?”

———

“There’s a second entrance round back,” Bucky says. “Wilson, you’re on Steve’s six. We’re going in, grabbing the drive, back out, easy. Building should be empty, and it’s mostly research, anyway.” He frowns at Steve. “What?”

“You were going to go alone,” Steve says. “Before we showed up.”

Bucky’s mouth tightens, but all he says is, “Let’s move.”

Bucky has an access code for the door. He moves purposefully through the building, no hesitation at the turns. Steve wonders how long he’s spent studying this place. 

Several corridors later, Bucky makes a satisfied noise. The door that’s in front of them looks to Steve like all the other doors they’ve passed, but Bucky’s fished a card from his pocket to slide through the reader. The door opens with a faint hiss.

Inside, the room is lit a dim blue from monitors filling the room, and lining the walls are what look like — pods, each big enough to fit a person, covered in frosted glass. Bucky ignores them all and heads straight for the row of computers.

“Right, this isn’t creepy at all,” Sam says. “Barnes, you know this place?”

“They kept me here a while in ‘92,” Bucky says. “Gave me an upgrade.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “We jacking your medical records?” He moves to see what Bucky’s doing.

Steve looks around. It’s not a place designed to be comfortable. He thinks about Bucky, being — kept, like a thing. Being upgraded, in this stark uncompromising place, and — remembering it, after all these years. He makes his way along the row of pods, his hand on the glass, and imagines Bucky inside one, helpless and alone.

There’s a pod near the end that’s warm to the touch. He pauses, examines the screen next to it. The numbers on the other monitors had been steady; this one’s is changing, slow. He leans to peer at the glass, and thinks he can see a faint shadow inside.

He presses his fingers along the edge, until he finds a catch.

“Steve?” Sam says from across the room.

Inside the pod, there’s a baby staring back at him

———

“Yep, that’s what I think it is,” Sam says. Steve’s lifted the baby out of the pod; she doesn’t seem to mind being picked up, and now she’s happily drooling on his sleeve. “Dude, that’s not how you hold a baby.“

“Isn’t it?” Steve says, distracted. She’s mouthing at his thumb and he’s trying to remember if he’s touched anything that might be bad for babies. “I don’t usually do this.”

“You’re Captain America,” Sam protests. “You know, freedom, apple pie, cute babies. I’ve seen pictures. They’re in history books.”

“That was seventy years ago,” Steve says. “And posed. They just needed me to sit somewhere.” He stares at the baby worriedly — it feels a little like she’s slipping in his grasp but she’s wiggling so much he’s afraid to adjust his grip.

“Christ’s sake, Rogers,” Bucky says, “you’re going to pull her arms off,” and deftly takes her away.

Steve stares at Bucky. So does Sam. Bucky’s got her neatly tucked above his hip, one arm around her. She protests a bit, then lays her head on his shoulder and starts gnawing at his collar.

“You…hold babies a lot in your spare time?” Sam asks.

Bucky frowns. “We should get out of here,” he says, ignoring the question.

“We can’t _steal_ a baby,” Steve says.

Bucky looks at him. “You wanna leave her with Hydra?”

Steve’s gotta admit, he doesn’t have an answer to that one.

———

They end up taking her back to Bucky’s apartment, while Steve tries to look very hard like he’s not stealing a baby. He’s not entirely sure if he succeeds, but Bucky’s holding her comfortably and she’s giggling at Sam making faces at her, which is probably why they don’t get arrested.

“Okay,” Bucky says, elbowing his way into the apartment. “I’m gonna see if I can find out where she came from. You two can go shopping.”

“What,” Steve says.

“She’s gotta eat,” Bucky says. “Diapers, too. There’s an Edeka down the street. Wilson, you’re in charge. Steve can carry things.” He tosses his wallet at Sam and heads for his laptop, the baby still sleepily nestled in his arm.

Sam looks at Steve. Steve shrugs. "I guess we’re going to Edeka.”

———

Steve’s German’s rusty, and his vocabulary’s never been domestic, besides. Sam ends up squinting at labels and putting words into Google Translate, while Steve picks out formula based on the pictures. "A week’s worth of stuff,” Sam decides. “We can come back later.”

When they come back from the store, they find Bucky on the sofa, very still. His laptop’s lying on the floor, a few feet away, and the baby’s sitting on his stomach, Bucky’s metal fingers in her mouth. 

“Hey now, can’t eat that,” Sam says, and goes to scoop her up. “C’mere, we got formula and some puree nonsense, let’s figure out which one you like.”

She grins at Sam, wiggling in his arms. Bucky sits up, flexing his fingers thoughtfully, and says, “I had three sisters.”

“Hm?”

“Before,” Bucky says. “I — remember.”

He’s not looking at Steve. Steve tries to say something, anything, but the words won’t come.

He excuses himself, walks blindly into the bathroom. Sits on the floor and breathes.

———

The baby drinks nearly an entire bottle before she loses interest. She’s nodding off by the end, and they wait until she falls asleep to regroup.

“So we’ve got a Hydra baby,” Sam says. “Tell me you know something, man.”

Bucky says, “They were trying to make her like me.”

“Okay,” Sam says, “when you say ‘like you’—”

Bucky grimly holds up his hand. “Neural integration’s easier when they’re younger.”

Steve looks at the baby, burrowed deep into her blanket. “But she doesn’t—” he says, and doesn’t know how to finish. 

“Didn’t get that far,” Bucky says. “She’s got a pulse generator implanted by her spine, but she should be okay.”

“Jesus,” Sam says. “Being Nazis isn’t bad enough for these guys?”

“Her family,” Steve says, a little strained. “Does she have one?” He imagines a compound somewhere, children being created in labs so Hydra can have its perfect soldiers.

“Turns out kids are hard to make,” Bucky says, and smiles with all his teeth. “Easier to steal ‘em. Yeah, she’s got a family.”

———

"Are you sure about this?” Steve says.

Sam says, “What if we get arrested for kidnapping?”

Bucky ignores them both and knocks on the door. The woman who answers takes one look at the baby nestled in Bucky’s arm and bursts into tears.

It takes a while to explain how they found her. Bucky does most of the talking; Steve dredges up the last of his remembered German to reassure the woman when she bursts into a stream of _Thank you_.

Bucky’s quiet on the way back. Steve tries several times to say something, but he’s not sure what.

“Listen,” Sam says, when they’re nearly back. “Maybe I should book tickets back.”

"Bucky,” Steve says, and reaches for his shoulder. “I—”

Bucky steps back, holds up his hand. “I thought,” he says, “I wanted, maybe if I didn’t have this anymore, I could go back. To before.”

Steve goes cold. “Is that why you took the files?”

Bucky gives him a thin smile and shoves the hand deep in his pocket. "Doesn’t matter. Turns out I’m stuck with it.”

Steve says, “ _Buck_.”

“But I remembered,” Bucky says. “Becca and Ma in the little kitchen and—” He pauses. “You.”

“Tell me what you want,” Steve says. “I don’t care about the rest.”

“I’m not promising to stay,” Bucky says.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and feels forward, takes Bucky’s hand. “Yeah, I know.”

Bucky looks over Steve’s shoulder, grins at Sam. “Think New York’s got room for one more?”

Sam laughs. “Yeah, man,” he says. “Yeah, I think the city can handle it.”


End file.
